The use of medical lasers in modern operating rooms is now commonplace because there are many advantages over the ordinary cutting tools, such as scalpels, such as instantaneous cauterization and reduction in the amount of bleeding. Unfortunately, there are certain undesireable side effects chief among which is the generation of a wide range of aerosol particles, the release of which into the operating theater is not only noxious but possibly hazardous to the health of all operating room personnel. One attempt at rectifying this condition may be found in the recently issued U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,603, to Goodsen et al, Apr. 5, 1988. This patent and some commercial laser smoke eliminators use filters having 0.3 micron openings which corresponds to 3000 Angstroms. These filters can retain larger size bacteria but definitely would not contain a virus of 30 Angstrom size. Since no one at this time seems to know exactly what viruses might be contained in the laser plume from an operating theater, and since it seems entirely possible that such plumes could contain non-filterable viruses which would definitely be hazardous to the operating room personnel, it would be desireable to employ a laser plume treatment system which would not only filter the bacteria from the stream, but would also positively eliminate all virus particles including those as small as 30 Angstroms which cannot be filtered.